There's Something About Catholicism #4

Return of Faith

Part 1

This is where my story gets very interesting...

By the age of 18 I had been living out of home for a few years, one or two of those years in Southbank, Melbourne. I was living the high life - a life of drinking, drugs and partying whilst studying during the days. I was living the fast life, reckless with little thought of consequence.

One night, my girlfriend Samantha called me and said she was coming to pick me up and we were going for a night on the town. It was a Tuesday night, and by this time I was living in the Eastern Suburbs. We drove into the city as nothing was open in the 'burbs and we found ourselves at Crown Casino. I remember thinking, as we drove around the city looking for an open bar, "Why don't we call into the 24 hour liquor-store and go back to yours?" but I decided against raising the issue as Sam really wanted to go out that night, I could tell it in her voice, in the way the acted - everything.

Samantha and I in Melbourne, August 2005.

Once at Crown we went upstairs to the nightclubs and went into Club Odeon. It was rather busy for a Tuesday night, the music was pretty shitty though, but we had fun. Out over the dance floor, Sam spotted a cute guy and pointed him out to me. Later in the night, we ended up dancing and talking to him and his friend.

After partying for a couple of hours, Sam and I decided to go get something to eat from McDonald's in the food-court. By this stage we had lost sight of the cute guy, Mark, and his friend, but surprise surprise we met up with them at McDonald's! We all ordered then sat together to eat and talk where we could actually hear one another, all decided to go with Mark in his car to a bar in Hawthorn as Odeon was pretty average. Sam and I were talking about getting a cab, leaving her car in the Crown carpark and collecting it later than day, but seeing as Mark was driving and was offering a lift, we decided on that. Little would we know that would be a fatal, life-changing mistake.

Driving from Southbank, over the Yarra River then up Flinders Street, we had a two-car collision at the King Street intersection... the main road that goes over Crown Casino and into their carpark. Mark was in the wrong, running a red light and speeding at 90kmp/hour in a 50km zone, we were T-boned by another car coming down Kingsway and ultimately we crashed into the wall of a pub that was just near the corner.